I walked towards that dreadful Hogwarts Express (dirty, full of grime, carrying hundreds of Hufflepuff weaklings, Ravenclaw nerds and Gryffindor suck-ups) on the first day of September.

“Oy, Malfoy!” Adrian Pucey called out from the window in the compartment he was settled in along with two of my closest (and stupidest) friends, Crabbe and Goyle.

I nod my head towards them in acknowledgement. “Had a good summer?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe!” he answered, then ducked his head back in to talk to someone behind him. “Tell you later in school,” he called out before going back to the conversation they were having.

I go up the stairs and head toward the front car, in search of the prefects’ compartment. I saw that Neville Longbottom made his way down the corridor towards the compartment he shared with the other Gryffindor idiots who weren’t smart enough to make prefect. Too bad. I headed off towards the prefects’ compartment (me being a Head Boy, mind you, but just had to share a compartment with the other lower beings) and slumped down to a seat next to Tracey Davis, a seventh-year Slytherin prefect. She swooned the moment she saw me. Sigh. Another groupie in the making.

“Hi Draco,” she said, fluttering her eyes at me. An action I don’t really get. Did mosquitoes somehow find their way inside her eyes to make it move that fast?

“Hello,” I answer curtly.

Ever since I came of age and my Veela hormones started kicking in, I’ve had several girls falling all over me, using all sorts of tactics to get my attention. Over the summer, I’ve had girls purposely bumping into me, throwing handkerchiefs on the floor with hopes I pick it up for them (like I’d ever) and laughing out loud to the point of deafening people around them. Not that I could complain, I never had a vacant weekend off (unless I wanted to) and had my own collection of girls to pick from, not that I ever really took them seriously. Or slept with them. Contrary to popular belief, although I didn’t bother to set the rumours straight.

And seated in front of me, the blood-traitor himself and sidekick to Scarhead, Ronald Weasley. And next to him, the other blood-traitor, the She-Weasel, Ginny Weasley and mudblood extraordinaire, Hermione Granger. I felt an opportune moment to annoy them to pieces present itself.

“And so the clock says to the mouse, ‘look for it!’” he exclaimed in a voice only people of his social-standing would be able to do and laughed out loud as if there was no tomorrow. The two girls followed suit.

What the bloody hell is so funny? I thought to myself, finding nothing hilarious about what he said (mainly because I wasn’t there for the start of the joke, but I’d like to think it was just because he’s as dull as a Seer looking into a crystal ball and foretelling lies).

Uh-oh. A smile crept up to my face at that moment. I swear I had nothing to do with it! I was planning to bombard them with all kinds of taunts and evilness galore. And besides, I did not understand the joke. I felt a warm glow, as if a ray of sunshine just spread throughout my body – an impossibility as not only was I in the confines of the train, but it was starting to drizzle outside and there was not a hint of sunlight. The smile got wider and wider that I was forced to cough and hide my ever increasing smile in my three hundred Galleon robe.

‘Pardon me,” I muttered to Tracey who was looking at me with a worried expression on her face and ran out the compartment before she offered help. No need for her to see me smiling gleefully out of nothing. Or even worse, she might find out that it was due to the Weasel that I was smiling.

Mouth, stop it, I commanded myself once I was safely outside the compartment. Unfortunately, it was a mouth and had no ears.

HERMIONE

September first has to be my favourite day of the year. Well, now that I think about it, it’s not as great as Christmas Day. But it gave me a feeling of bliss all the same.

So there I was, in the prefects’ compartment of the Hogwarts Express with Ron and Ginny. Ginny was made prefect, too! Mrs Weasley must be so proud. My Mum and Dad were when I received the owl from Hogwarts that contained my Head Girl’s badge. I was so nervous. But now I’m just over the edge with pride and happiness to be going back to Hogwarts for my last and final year.

Ron was in the middle of telling a joke he apparently heard from Bill. And it was about this clock and a mouse. I’m absolutely dreadful when it comes to telling jokes, so I can hardly re-tell it without spoiling it all together. Anyway, I laughed so loud I swear a little pee came out.

That’s when I noticed that Draco ‘the Amazing Bouncing Ferret’ Malfoy had entered the compartment and had sat beside the seventh year Slytherin prefect. Normally, I don’t really care what Malfoy says or does, as long as he’s not saying or doing it to me and my friends. But when he began looking at us, I reached into my jean pocket for my wand, just in case.

He was about to say something, of this I was certain. But he suddenly – and uncharacteristically – began to smile. And not some half-smile half-smirk he usually has plastered on his face, but a rather genuine all out smile. I didn’t know the corners of his mouth extended that far. But at that point his smile was a full on grin.

I stopped laughing, Ron’s joke now forgotten. This was a weird sight. Then Malfoy got up and out of his seat and suddenly burst out of the compartment and ran into the corridors, his hand over his mouth. For a moment there, I actually felt worried. But I simply brushed it off.

Then the hours passed by and we patrolled the corridors every now and then to make sure everything was in order and before I realised what time it was, the train began to slow down.

“We’d best change into our school robes now,” Ginny said as we approached the prefects’ compartment once again after our rounds.

“You’re right,” I said as I entered the prefects’ compartment once again. “I suppose we’ve arrived.”

As soon as we alighted from the train I heard the familiar hollering of Hagrid, Hogwarts’ Game Keeper and Care of Magical Creatures professor.

“Firs’ years! Over here!” said the towering man in his great furry cloak and dragon hide boots. “Firs’ year! Oy there ‘Arry! Ron, Hermione, how was yer summer?”

We all nodded and agreed that the summer has, indeed, been the same as always. Mine was simple and carefree, which I had spent with my family in Italy. Ron’s was most probably crazy, as usual, spent in the Burrow with his great big family. Harry’s was most certainly torture, what with his weird relatives. And it was only two weeks before the first day of September that Harry and I were able to spend the remainder of our summer holidays with the Weasleys.

Harry, Ron, Ginny and I loaded ourselves into a thestral-driven carriage and we were soon joined by Neville and Luna.

“Harry,” Ron said, a thoughtful look upon his face. “The weirdest thing happened in the prefects’ compartment on the ride over.”

I quickly looked at Ron, wondering if he noticed Malfoy’s strange behaviour as well.

“It was that ferret,” Ron continued with the story, telling everyone about how Malfoy began to, seemingly, laugh at his joke before he started having a coughing fit and brusquely left the compartment.

“It must have been the knargles,” Luna said knowingly with her pleasingly dreamy voice. “Must have been flying around in the compartment and entered Malfoy’s ear. My father did an article on them a few months back.”

I just smiled. By this time I have gotten used to Luna’s tall tales. But I turned towards Ron and said, “So you noticed it, too, then? I thought it was just me imagining things.”

“How can you not notice?” asked Ginny. “It was the first time I ever saw Malfoy smile.”

Harry took this in with a few nods thrown here and there. But I knew he was not letting this go lightly. Knowing Harry, he most certainly had this jotted down in his little mental notebook of all weird and unusual Malfoy moments.

As soon as the Sorting was done and everyone was watered and fed, we all trooped back into our perspective Common Rooms, as the prefects and Heads made sure everyone went on their way in an orderly fashion.

The moment I laid my head on my pillow, I knew for a fact that it wouldn’t take much for me to fall asleep that night. And within seconds, I did.

--

Authors' Notes: Thank you to all those who reviewed in the previous chapter. We love you all and we really hope that this chapter does justice to the story. Seeing as we've segmented this chapter into two different perspectives, we're not really sure how you (our dear reader) would react to it. At any rate, we want to know what you think (we read all the reviews good and bad - though thankfully we haven't come across a bad review yet) so please, do leave a review. Thanks:) -SkyeSloane